The roofer woke me at 8 a.m. this morning, calling to say that he'd fixed the fascia but hey, guess what, the webbing has pulled loose on my flat roof and it needs to be fixed and my chimney needs repair too and he took pictures did I get them, which no I did not because you can't text pictures to a landline. Groggily give him cell number and lie back down, only to be called again on cell and asked did they come through, which no they did not. He tries again. They come through. Yes indeed, the membrane has come loose and is folded on itself, sheesh. Groggily ask him to send me an estimate, he ask me to text him my email. Do. Email comes in as .pdf which I save and open, to find the image sideways and unreadable. Turn on printer, print it, turn off computer and restart because printer always breaks my internet connection. There are times I hate living in the future.Look at rightways-up estimate. A fast $7600 plus nearly a thousand in sales tax.

By this time I'm in a tizzy. My house is, in more ways than one, where I live, and things going wrong with it err hit home. Google roofers, select a 5-star recommended one, call him. Says he can come by today to give estimate. Go off to acupuncture and work. (And why do all roofers have thick accents that turn to garble on the phone? Immigrants saved our downtown, I know, but they were Italian, which I'm used to. The newer breed of Greeks and Slavs are much harder to understand.)

Roofer 2 texts me, says he left estimate in mailbox. Come home. Estimate is $4000 plus $500 of sales tax. Much better. Bar those contingency expenses- if we find anything- and we will, you betcha. Go next door for gin, and s-i-l cheerfully avers that no harm came from ignoring flat roofs. 'Fix it if it starts leaking. Or just sell it and move elsewhere.' It's precisely reasons like this that made my sister sell her house, but the apartment she moved to now wants to condomize and the tenants are fighting it. No peace anywhere, say I.

Speaking of which, I see from other people's FLs that everyone is ready to up stakes and move to DW, deleting journals as they go. As they please; I have a permanent account and will continue to cross-post, more in case LJ itself disappears than from any paranoia about the Russians coming after me.